On paper, sure. When you're face to face with your interviewer and they ask you point blank, and you say "It's against the law for you to ask this", guess who's not getting a callback?

I was asked "What's your expectation around salary?" in an interview once, in MA, and then asked "Isn't it illegal for you to ask me that?"

She replied: "It's illegal for me to ask anything about your salary history. It's not illegal to ask about your expectations."

A rose by any other name, though...

That interviewer sounds a little rude, but... I think I agree with them. Those are materially different questions.

If I think I've been underpaid in the past, I can just start naming a new salary expectation but I can't rewrite my salary history.

In any event, I think it's also always OK for the applicant to say "I'd rather not say."

She wasn't rude at all - or even incorrect, for that matter. I've since followed up with HR professionals and even one lawyer: there was nothing illegal about her question.

My point was that there is still plenty of space within the bounds of law and politeness for you to compromise your negotiating position to a prospective employer. That's all. : )

I think that depends on the person doing the interview. Like if I were interviewing someone, and discussing salary was part of my role, and they named an expectation 2x what we were planning to pay, I'd ask them why.

Perhaps that's the norm where they come from? Maybe they heard Google paid that much? Maybe they were just throwing out a high number to anchor high?

It's funny to imagine the interview game being like the dating game teenagers talk about, where one wrong move, facial expression, or word uttered can wreck everything.

They are technically different questions, but think for a moment about what the speaker is trying to achieve.

This is not talking with a friend, making pleasantries. This is at work, getting paid, by a company, to learn how low an offer they can make for it to be accepted.

Pretending that the conversation is anything except that, is serving the interests of companies who try to do exactly that.

Telling someone that what they perceive is not what it is, that what others can perceive is not what it is, is like flickering the lights on and off, and saying nothing is wrong, and asking why someone is so upset.

When asked about expectations, I always give a high number and they have to negotiate down from it. That's the universal rule of price negotiations, that's how it worked when buying a rug in Cairo in 1000 AD, and that's still how it works now.

If they already broke the law in an interview, what other laws are they breaking and are you willing to take a chance to be a scapegoat if they get caught?

This is a good indicator that you are interviewing for wrong company.

I don’t advocate lying, but in that case at least in California I think it’d be safe to give them any number you feel is useful. After all, this is a moment of negotiation, not a moment of establishing facts, and they have already told you they’re playing loose.

[Edit] To be clear, I would break off the interview instead of playing that game, but I have the good fortune to have a lot of offers. As others have said, it’s a big red flag. But if you’re stuck with it...

What sort of company behavior do you think you'd see there after you get hired? Seems like no callback = dodging a bullet

They can have fun hiring juniors without experience then

I've just realized a question//concern:

Is there any healthy place or way or method "juniors" can learn through experience without being screwed over? Be it low money, blood money, poor experience, terrible managers ... is "let the vile companies get the fresh graduates" the best answer here? What can be the alternative here?

[Edit:] Not everywhere has mentors. In my experience, mentors are a luxury. Saying "but mentors" isn't an end-all True answer. Same thing for Internships -- not all College Universities require them.

Maybe I am in a personal moral or ethical crisis here, but at the moment I'd like to stand by this line of question.

>Is there any healthy place or way or method "juniors" can learn through experience without being screwed over?

That's a great question. I agree that mentors aren't the catch-all answer. I will say, though, having been on both sides of the mentorship divide, that a good mentor is a powerful positive force in your career. Doesn't change the fact that it only gets you so far.

When it comes to money, I'm afraid there isn't a whole lot junior technical candidates can do to get more. In my experience, technical experience and negotiating leverage are the two surest paths to getting paid more. Junior engineers straight out of college have neither of these things. Jobs beget negotiating leverage. If you have a job, a new job has to give you a better deal to convince you to leap. That's something that a fresh college graduate, inconveniently, lacks.

There seems to be a lot of advice here that suggests taking the best job you can straight out of school, and then switching jobs as soon as you reasonably can. That's what I did - I spent a year at a big chip company, decided it wasn't for me, and left for a consumer electronics company. That one year of credible work experience netted me a ~30% raise on switching.

I don't think it's as big a problem, first because everyone will have bad experiences at some point and that's a growth opportunity in and of itself. Secondly because good candidates are apprehensive about bad companies regardless of their experience level.

And frankly the market is competitive enough that you can always quit a bad job to find a better one, if you're qualified.

> everyone will have bad experiences at some point and that's a growth opportunity in and of itself.

That's a really great point to bring up. Lousy professional experiences are opportunities to learn, or grow. Doesn't make them fun, but it does make them valuable.

>good candidates are apprehensive about bad companies regardless of their experience level.

I'm not certain this is true. There are plenty of smart, motivated people who don't necessarily have the career experience to notice red flags at a potentially negative employer.

Someone with high enough standards to not work for companies that blatantly break laws?